Full of self-loathing, Roslyn is contrasted with Isabelle, an aging fiery woman of the world whose existential attitude is one of survival and gritty realism. Roslyn is lost and insignificant among a vast interior wasteland, a prison whose walls are flesh and bone. But her insights are profound and caring, wanting to help but not asking for help, her emotional body invisible against her voluptuous physicality, reflecting this pure misogyny that infuses our society. Gay and Perce are cowboys, a nomenclature that defines their superficial qualities of free men who shall never “work for wage”. Guido is the devious innocent, the manipulator who lives his life above others, looking down at the destruction he’s wrought but never seeing the people.
Director John Huston’s camera adores Marilyn Monroe and embraces her femininity with sensual close-ups that accentuate her lovely form, but often films her in reflection showing her dramatic duality as her morality surrenders to a hellish world. The narrative’s vertex is an emotional duel in the Nevada desert, as the three men subdue a handful of graceful wild-horses, pulling down the world with their own egocentric insignificance. Roslyn sees them as murders, machines of death, things no longer human, and her faint plea is almost lost amid the cosmos.
The soft whinnying of dying horses is her own death rattle, as she becomes a ghost in the arid desert. But Perce decides to forego the money and free the horses while Gay recaptures the stallion…only to set him free: he abides by his own terms. Roslyn’s fierce love resurrects Perce and Gay…but Guido remains one of the walking dead.
Final Grade: (A)
